Missing toddler found dead in 'deplorable' home where 'squatters' often lived: police

Area residents and neighbors pray for 17-month-old Semaj Crosby outside the house where she was found dead, in the 300 block of Louis Road Thursday, April 27, 2017, in Joliet. Semaj was reported missing Tuesday and was found dead inside the home about midnight Thursday. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Area residents and neighbors pray for 17-month-old Semaj Crosby outside the house where she was found dead, in the 300 block of Louis Road Thursday, April 27, 2017, in Joliet. Semaj was reported missing Tuesday and was found dead inside the home about midnight Thursday. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Alicia Fabbre, Elyssa Cherney, Angie Leventis LourgosChicago Tribune

Authorities and volunteers had scoured one Joliet Township neighborhood this week for any sign of a missing 17-month-old girl, desperately hoping the toddler had simply wandered off.

But the body of Semaj Crosby was discovered early Thursday just after midnight inside her home, which was in “very deplorable” condition and often inhabited by “squatters,” according to authorities.

The little girl was pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterward. The cause of death is “pending further studies,” the Will County coroner's office said Thursday after an autopsy. Cause will be determined based on police investigation reports and final toxicology results, which could take several weeks, the office said.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had been investigating the girl's mother for neglect and had visited the home just hours before she was reported missing, but said it found no immediate threat to the girl's safety.

Will County sheriff's police called the death suspicious.

“Having kids of my own … it's tough,” said Rick Ackerson, deputy chief of the Will County sheriff's office, growing emotional at a news conference Thursday.

At 11 p.m. Wednesday, sheriff's police and FBI agents gained consent to search the home from an attorney, Ackerson said. Within an hour, investigators discovered the toddler's body. Authorities would not give the exact location, but a source said the body was found under a couch in the home. The couch did not have legs and was flush to the ground, the source said.

Semaj Crosby, a 17-month-old girl reported missing Tuesday evening, was found dead in a Joliet Township home April 27, 2017.

(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Semaj was last seen barefoot in dark blue jeans and a gray shirt with a cat on the front, her dark hair up in several ponytails held with white-beaded ties, authorities said. She was found wearing the clothes described at the time she disappeared, Will County sheriff's spokeswoman Kathy Hoffmeyer said.

The girl's family reported her missing around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Just a few hours earlier, DCFS investigators had seen the little girl safe in the home in the 300 block of Louis Road in Joliet Township.

DCFS had been at the home about 3:20 p.m. and seen Semaj and two siblings with “no obvious hazards or safety concerns at the time,” DCFS spokeswoman Alissandra Calderon said in an email. DCFS had been investigating the girl's mother for alleged neglect, Calderon said; the agency's prior contact with the family included two pending investigations for neglect opened in March and four prior unfounded investigations for neglect.

Calderon added that DCFS had been working with the family since September, but she declined to answer more questions about the case.

Hoffmeyer said DCFS had visited the family 16 times in the last year.

Ackerson said as many as five to 15 people lived at the home at any given time — some friends or relatives would stay for a while and then move out — referring to them as “squatters.” There were several people living in the home this week, he said.

Rushaun Barefield, 18, looks at a makeshift memorial for 17-month-old Semaj Crosby at the corner of Louis Road and Richards Street on April 27, 2017, in Joliet. Semaj was reported missing Tuesday and was found dead early Thursday morning. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Rushaun Barefield, 18, looks at a makeshift memorial for 17-month-old Semaj Crosby at the corner of Louis Road and Richards Street on April 27, 2017, in Joliet. Semaj was reported missing Tuesday and was found dead early Thursday morning. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

“We will continue to try to find out why it ended in such a tragic end,” Ackerson said.

The sheriff's office also had asked the Will County Land Use Department to conduct a status check of the residence.

“Upon the conclusion of their examination they have deemed the house uninhabitable and have red-tagged it,” a statement from the sheriff's office said.

An attorney representing the child's mother, Sheri Gordon, said she was grateful for the investigators and volunteers who searched for Semaj. The attorney described the mother as extremely distraught over the death of her daughter.

“She prays for her daughter and appreciates the community's support,” the attorney, Neil Patel, said in a written statement. “We look forward to when we can put this tragic incident behind us and allow the healing to begin.”

The child's father, James Crosby, was in Will County court Thursday on an unrelated theft charge from 2016. The 25-year-old Romeoville man was in custody at the time of his daughter's death, but a Will County judge agreed to release him to tend to the funeral. As a condition of his release, the father must wear a monitoring device to check for consumption of alcohol or other substances, according to his attorney. Crosby was in “shock,” his attorney said.

Neighbor Marie Jones talks about the death of 17-month-old Semaj Crosby. The child's body was discovered at her home in the 300 block of Louis Road in Joliet Township, the Will County sheriff's office said in a news release April 27, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Neighbor Marie Jones talks about the death of 17-month-old Semaj Crosby. The child's body was discovered at her home in the 300 block of Louis Road in Joliet Township, the Will County sheriff's office said in a news release April 27, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Authorities and volunteers spent a day and a half searching for the little girl. Investigators went door to door. Bloodhounds and more than 80 emergency personnel from the sheriff's office and Will County Emergency Management conducted a grid search of the neighborhood. A Cook County helicopter service conducted an air search using infrared capabilities.

“I'm so distraught,” said Maria Jones, who lives two houses from where the child was found. “We were out here looking for two days and to find out that the baby in the house …”

But one relative had said she was skeptical of the theory that the toddler had wandered off.

Ashley Thompson, a Joliet woman who identified herself as a cousin of the child's mother, said Semaj could “barely walk,” having just learned.